Student activists open cafe on double-decker in city

Student activists open cafe on double-decker in city

By Andreas Baenziger

JAKARTA: The waiter, Roland, was the man who organized the
student demonstrations in Indonesia's capital Jakarta nearly a
year ago which triggered the events leading to the overthrow of
the dictator Soeharto.

The chef, Rigga, led the students from the mechanical
engineering faculty and, as general secretary of the student
union at Trisakti University, he also carried political
responsibility for the demonstration in which four students were
killed on May 12, 1998.

They and 19 other student activists have now opened Cafe
Smooth, a cafe in an old double decker bus in a business district
of Jakarta.

"We want to make some money," said Ivan. "But the main reason
we are doing it is to talk to people, to discuss our concerns."
The cafe has become something of a venue for people trying to
examine and explain the past.

"It is not easy to forget those memories," said Roland. Rigga
agreed: "One of my people was killed. He was shot in the back."
The students want to use the money they make at Cafe Smooth to
finally discover the true facts behind those fatal shots fired on
peacefully demonstrating students who were already on the
retreat.

Who pulled the trigger? Who gave the order to shoot? A
military commission of enquiry could not, or would not, find
those responsible, even though there were eyewitnesses, and the
fatal cartridges could have shown who had fired them. Yet the
cartridges, the most important pieces of evidence, disappeared in
police hands.

Many Indonesians believe sections of the military wanted to
provoke a bloodbath at the height of the protests in May last
year, to provide them with an excuse to crack down - with or
without Soeharto - and seize power.

There was indeed a bloodbath, but in the end it cost Soeharto
his position and put Indonesia on the path to democracy after 30
years of dictatorship. The students did not just trigger this
process, they also carried it along for the first months.

Their main demands now are the resignation of President B.J.
Habibie, who was in league with the Soeharto regime, and the
withdrawal of the military from politics.

Yet the student movement has grown remarkably quiet since the
beginning of the year as a deep political split emerges within
their ranks.

"I can't bear to read anything by them at the moment," said
Tunggul Sirait, rector of Indonesian Christian University. "They
are completely wrapped up with themselves."

The radical student representatives, who are in the majority
at the Protestant university, are boycotting the parliamentary
elections planned for June 7 - unless that is President Habibie
resigns beforehand to make way for a neutral caretaker
government.

Their more moderate colleagues, such as those among Trisakti
University's 28,000 students, are prepared to accept the flaws in
the fledgling democratic process.

"There are still a lot of obstacles," said Taufik Kurniawan,
who is responsible for "strategic planning" on Trisakti's student
body. "But we still believe that these elections are the best way
for our country to learn democracy. We have to make a start."

The most serious obstacle the moderate students are having to
swallow is the continued political role of the military. Although
the military representatives in parliament will only number 38
after the elections, the students still consider this too many.

Nevertheless they still want to play a part in the elections.
They want to go into the residential districts of Jakarta to
discuss democracy with the people who have only once - in 1955
-experienced truly free elections since Indonesia gained its
independence.

They know that this will not be an easy task because most
people are struggling simply to survive, said Taufik. The
students want to become election observers to ensure that there
is no intimidation at the polling booths. They want to be an
ethical rather than a political force.

Three months before the elections and no less than 141
political parties have registered. Forty-eight of them have
already been confirmed - they have fulfilled the requirement to
put up candidates in at least nine of the 27 electoral provinces.

But the large number of parties is likely to result in a
split, an indecisive election result, even if only four parties
are really significant. They are the ruling Golkar Party led by
President Habibie, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle
led by Megawati Soekarnoputri - daughter of the country's first
president Sukarno who was deposed by Soeharto - the Party of
National Awakening led by liberal Muslim leader Abdurrahman
Wahid, and the National Mandate Party led by Amien Rais.

None of these parties is likely to achieve an absolute
majority and it will be difficult to form a government capable of
winning a majority. Yet that is perhaps not the most important
factor.

"In the first instance, we need to experience honest and just
elections for once," said Rector Sirait of Indonesian Christian
University. "If the elections are not generally accepted, we will
face the threat of a social revolution.

-- Sueddeutsche Zeitung